Saturday, August 06, 2005

Authorities unveiled new regulations that will prohibit minors under the age of 18 from playing violent online games that allow them to kill other players in what is known commonly as Player vs. Player (PvP) in the west, though Chinese authorities have termed it "Player Kills" (PK).

They plan to enforce this by having all MMORPG users authenticate their age by entering their personal identity number on their national ID card. .....

In addition, Chinese authorities have also ordered online game operators to install timing mechanisms that will automatically log players off of online games once they have exceeded a set number of hours of continuous play, with Chinese gamers on average spending 10.9 hours a week playing online games.

In the wake of the GTA San Andreas controversy, one hopes this is not a trend across the world.

Big-Parent approaches to society have never ever worked in the long run, or even in the short term, methinks.